The suspension, which will make it harder for Russians to travel
to Turkey, is likely to have a significant negative impact on
Turkey's economy.

Russians account for a huge portion of Turkey's tourism
industry. About 3.3 million Russian tourists visited Turkey in
2014, the second-largest number of tourist arrivals after Germany
and around 12% of total visitors, according toReuters.

The move comes two days after Russia issued
an official travel warning advising its citizens against
visiting Turkey. Russian travel agencies have also announced that
they will withdraw their business in Turkey until next year,
according
to a translation by Boris Zilberman, a Russia expert at the
Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington, D.C.-based
think tank.

"Absent a clear Turkish apology, Putin had to show
toughness and 'react,'" geopolitical expert Ian Bremmer,
president of Eurasia Group, told BI on Friday.

"But this reaction is carefully measured and not meant to
create a tit for tat that becomes
dangerous. Russians aren't going to touch gas
exports to Turkey. And I don't see military escalation on either
side."

An image from a BBC video
showing the crash.BBC

On Tuesday, Turkey ordered the shooting down of a Russian Su-24
fighter that Turkey accused of violating its airspace for roughly
17 seconds.

Turkey has defended its decision to down the plane,
contending that the plane was in Turkish airspace
and had been warned repeatedly before it was shot down by Turkish
F-16 jets. Turkey released audio of those warnings on
Thursday. But Russian President
Vladimir Putin said the
plane was destroyed by a Turkish missile while
flying in Syrian airspace, roughly a mile from the Turkish
border.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev called the act
"criminal,"
announcing on Thursday that Russia would place wide-ranging
sanctions on "foodstuffs, labor, and
services from Turkish companies" in Russia.

The sanctions "could bite into more than $30 billion in
trade ties between the two countries, as police here began
seizing Turkish products and deporting Turkish businessmen,"
Andrew Roth, The Washington Post's Moscow
correspondent, wrote
on Thursday with Karla Adam.

Turkey's
President Tayyip Erdogan (2nd R) walks with his Russian
counterpart Vladimir Putin prior to their meeting at the Group of
20 (G20) leaders summit in the Mediterranean resort city of
Antalya, Turkey, November 16, 2015.Kayhan Ozer/Pool/Reuters

On Thursday, Putin threatened to pull out of the fight
against ISIS, also known as the Islamic State, if Turkey
downed another Russian jet.

"We are ready to cooperate with the coalition which is led
by the United States," Putin said at a news conference on
Thursday with French President Francois Hollande, according to
The Guardian.

"But of course incidents like the destruction
of our aircraft and the deaths of our servicemen ... are
absolutely unacceptable."

On Friday,
Erdogan reiterated during a speech in Bayburt, in northeast
Turkey, that he didn't want Turkey's relations with Russia to
suffer.

But, he added: "We very sincerely recommend to Russia not
to play with fire."

'Geopolitical games'

Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, accused Turkey on
Friday of "playing a game where terrorists are allocated
the role of secret allies," adding that Russia
was ready to
block the Turkish-Syrian border to "eradicate terrorism
on Syrian soil."

It is unclear how such a blockage would be enforced, or whether
it would involve stationing Russian ground troops at
the border.

Russia has accused Turkey of facilitating the Islamic State's
rise by purchasing oil stolen and produced by the jihadist group
in Syria.

"We established a long time ago that large quantities of
oil and oil products from territory captured by the Islamic State
have been arriving on Turkish territory," Putin said on Wednesday
from the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi, before a
meeting with Jordan's King Abdullah.

Western officials have long harbored suspicions about
Turkey's links to the Islamic State. One official told The
Guardian's Martin Chulov in July that a US-led raid on the
compound housing ISIS' "chief financial officer" produced
"undeniable" evidence that Turkish officials directly dealt
with ranking ISIS members, mainly by purchasing oil from
them.

Still, those links have never been confirmed — a point Erdogan
made as he shot back on Friday, challenging Russia to
provide proof that Turkey had ever engaged in financial dealings
with ISIS.

Erdogan further
accusedRussia of supporting
what he called the "state terrorism" of the regime of Syrian
President Bashar Assad that has "killed 380,000 people," according
to the Turkish state news agency
Anadolu.

Russia, a staunch ally of Assad, began launching airstrikes
in Syria in late September on behalf of the Syrian government.
But the lifelines Russia has thrown to Assad have not been
limited to military aid.

Institute for the Study of War

On Wednesday, the
US Treasury sanctioned Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, a former
president of the autonomous Russian Republic of Kalmykia, on
suspicion of helping Syria's central bank avoid international
sanctions.

The Treasury Department also sanctioned Russian-Syrian businessman
George Haswani for using his firm, Hesco Engineering and
Construction Co., to purchase oil from the Islamic State on
behalf of the Assad regime.

In response to the sanctions, Russian Deputy Foreign
Minister Sergei Ryabokov said Washington should stop playing
"geopolitical games."

Russian officials complained on Thursday that they had not
received a "clear apology" from Turkish officials over the downed
plane, adding that they would not communicate with Turkey
directly until Ankara apologized.

Though he acknowledged on Thursday that Turkey "may
have warned the plane differently" had it known it was a Russian
jet, Erdogan has refused to blink first.

"I think if there is a party that needs to apologize, it is
not us," he
told CNN in an interview from Ankara.

He added: "Those who violated our airspace are the ones who
need to apologize. Our pilots and our armed forces, they simply
fulfilled their duties, which consisted of responding to ...
violations of the rules of engagement. I think this is the
essence."